Time Will Tell
by Hovinarri
Summary: Deidara was too eager to take just one day at a time, Sasori was the polar opposite. They are drawn together for a whole day, but could that little time really change anything? SasoDei AU


Hi!

Here's a chapter of something-something to celebrate the second anniversary of Trump Card! This has absolutely nothing to do with it, though.. isn't that nice? :)  
But yeah, 'Time' seemed like the most popular option in the poll in my profile, so that's what I did. This idea was actually around loooong before Trump Card, though it was very different back then.. well, I hope you like it!

For my darling, as always. Hope you like this too!

Disclaimer: I don't own. :)

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April 17th, 1909

A young man was sitting at a salon-styled café, as emotionless as a frozen rock in mid-January. On the light yellow table cloth there was a single coffee stain, presumably from the day before – he had studied it carefully and decided it was shaped like a pelican with a fish in its mouth.

In the café with him there were four other people; the forever drunk-going-grey bartender Jiraya, the young, Chinese-looking waitress with money problems (didn't they all, though?) called Tenten, There were also two other people, sitting at the table closest to the door – and farthest from him. Their names were Gaara and Temari, and they were siblings. Despite their blood bond, they weren't too close to each other, which is why they were currently having a very, very awkward conversation about the weather (it was grey out for 139 days of the years, for god's sake) and soon they would switch to some desperate chit-chatter about pastries, even though neither of them could cook.

When the door opened, he was more than only startled. The door wasn't supposed to open for another 37 minutes, when a young man called Naruto would storm in, only to find that he was in the wrong place after all (as this wasn't one of those newly-opened Japanese restaurants). And nothing _ever_ changed in this little village.

The person at the door was indeed a blonde young man like Naruto and he had the same Atlantic blue eyes (or not quite the same but still the same), but that was the end of their similarities. This man had a slim build and a brown four-button suite with patch pockets that looked only a little classy but also like it was alright for him to be here. He didn't look too classy not to belong, that is.

He started to stroll through the café rather carefreely – at least that's the impression he seemed to attempt to give. In reality he was rather obviously eyeing each and every one of them ever so untrustingly, as a man returning from the war would, not knowing if he could trust anyone ever again. Finally, he settled at one of the bar stools, only to have the man silently call him over to his isolated table with two chairs, a pot of narcissus and that coffee stain he could not quite ignore.

"Who are you?" he asked dubiously, immediately upon getting the other to sit down, without an inkblot of trust staining his quiet tone, "You are not from here, that I know."

The other seemed surprised only for a split second before adapting his face back into the calm grin that seemed to be his preferred expression. "What do you mean, who am I, un?" he asked in return ever so innocently, "I can honestly tell you that I don't know most of the people from this village even though I've lived here for years, so how can you be so suspicious of my mere existence?" He wasn't a man of few words, that much was obvious. "Deidara, pleasure."

"Sasori," he replied, somewhat uneasy to see the other gain a name, an identity, just before his very own eyes. It just wasn't supposed to happen, not anymore. "But you cannot be here. You just cannot be." He was somewhat aware of having changed his accusation from being from here to being here altogether, but in his mind, in his _world_, the two terms had everything and anything in common.

"Rude," came the response, "are you not, un?" He seemed to be eyeing the table cloth and the coffee stain and Sasori felt the strangest temptation of asking him what the drop of colour on that yellow-white checkered cloth embodied for him. He didn't do it, though. He felt that with that, something would have been broken. He didn't have much that was his anymore, but that coffee stain had only been there for two hours. He _almost_ owned it.

"I can honestly say that I know every single person in this town," said the man who was just coming to the realization that he was the shorter one out of the two of them, "And you are not one of them."

"And I can honestly say that you're not that difficult to read either, un," Deidara said, and either it was only Sasori's imagination, or the other man's tone was growing less and less friendly and carefree than it had been at the start of this conversation. "If I didn't know better," he raised his eyebrows in a way that seemed to say _and I don't know better_, "I would almost wonder if you had perhaps run into a," he lowered his voice considerably, like a kid sharing a secret on the playground, "witch, un." He ended the sentence so suddenly and started a new one even faster, so that Sasori was _almost_ caught off guard. "And if I didn't know better, I would even go as far as maybe assuming," he murmured calmly, "that you have also been cursed by said witch on that encounter."

"Well then," Sasori responded, slightly annoyed because he did not wish to be referred to as someone who was easy to read by any means. He was _not_ easy to read. "It's a good thing you do know better, is it not?" He leant himself slightly over the round table, because he did not also wish for others to catch even bits of their conversation. It was private matters, after all. Very private. In the quiet symphony that was his mind, he was ever so _disturbed_ by the mere thought that the blonde _knew_, knew something so intimate and private and something that just wasn't a business of his to get into.

"Indeed," Deidara responded, seeming much more calm and collected than how Sasori felt about himself. Then again, Sasori knew fully well that the effect in his own eyes would've been the same if they were made out of glass, like those of a puppet – they never portrayed no emotion whatsoever. "But what if I did not know better?" he asked – Sasori wasn't sure if rhetorical or not – giving the shorter man a peculiar look from underneath his long fringe that seemed to say _I know the likes of you_ or something at least nearly as threatening. He did not like that look, even though he obviously wasn't threatened in the slightest. "But if I did not know better, again… I could almost say we're on the same boat, un."

"Glad you do know better," Sasori scoffed again. In his books, they were not on the same _anything anywhere ever,_ least of all a fucking boat cruise.

Deidara looked at him with something that seemed like it could almost be a glare if it wasn't for the fact that his blue eyes seemed to be completely incapable of something so sinister. He said, quietly but nearly in a threatening tone, "I'm right and you should know it," he turned a bit away from the rest of the café (the rest of the petty _world_), and pulled up his (_left_) sleeve. "And I'll prove it to you, un." Apparently, he thought it was okay and somehow socially acceptable (it wasn't either of those, honestly, _honestly_) to do something like that – unveiling a red, gaping hole on the inside of his wrist, one that looked like something had ripped the skin off of it and tried to make its way to his bones but been forced to stop at the muscle, he could almost see them pulsing desperately with life, could see his veins that looked like they could be cut with a sewing needle or even a fork. It was grotesque.

Sasori was startled, to say the least. While Deidara pulled his sleeve back down, the redhead promptly jumped out of his seat and told the blond to get the hell away from him. This, however, didn't faze Deidara. He calmly murmured, "You're just the same, aren't you, un? You're me, so why do you look at me like I'm a monster?"

"We are nothing alike," Sasori hissed, leaving the house without even taking his coat. He was so annoyed, so horrified... so afraid. He didn't want to accept it, didn't want to even consider the fact. He had learned to calmly ignore it, and every other emotion that usually accompanied it, altogether. He was much stronger than this. He knew he was.

He made it home, locked the door, sat on his very uncomfortable bed. Nothing in the room had changed, not for... a hundred days? A hundred and twenty? Even though keeping count had for long been the only thing he had, he had lost it many and many days ago. He just didn't care anymore.

He looked up, looked around. He wondered, if he had changed something during those hundred and twenty days, what would it have been? The ugly brown curtains on the windows, the paintings on the wall, the mess that was his bed?

He probably would've cleaned it up. Maybe. Hopefully, since it had bothered him for a long time.

It wasn't long until there was a knock on the door. He didn't need to look up to tell it was the blonde from the bar. Soon he was at the window. He waved his hands for maybe two minutes before losing his temper and opening the door with a device of some sort. He seemed very proud of himself, smug even. A brat, that's what he was. Proud to have broken in to someone's home.

"What do you still want from me?" Sasori asked, annoyed.

"Closure?" Deidara offered with a shrug. Sasori didn't exactly believe it, though.

"Right," he murmured through gritted teeth, "You broke in to say 'bye'? You could've just waved through the window, I hope you understand that."

"If I did that.." Deidara started, seeming to forget his point just as quickly as it had occurred to him. He seemed to mouth a quick 'nevermind' before looking away again. "If I did that, I would have never known if I was correct, true, un?"

"Correct?" Sasori repeated dubiously, "Correct with… what?"

"That we're the same," Deidara repeated himself. "Maybe my introduction went a little wrong, topsy-turvy, whatnot" he murmured, "I'm Deidara, and I'm from the 18th century. London, if you will." He paused, seeming almost sad for a moment. It didn't suit him at all. "Every time the clock strikes midnight, I wake up in a new place, a new day, a new century." He closed his eyes for a moment, as if remembering the countless horrors he had gone through, before opening them again. Blue.

He took the liberty to sit down on the only chair Sasori had to his name. Sasori was slightly annoyed, but he swallowed it down, because he'd rather have Deidara _over there_ than _right here_. "That's my curse. What's yours, un?"

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A-ta-tah! Hope that was nice! The next chapter will be longer, I promise.. but I won't write a second chapter if you don't like this, so.. please review or express your feelings about this in some way? :D


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